Waylon Jennings(American Musician)

Date of Birth:

June 15, 1937

Date of Death:

February 13, 2002

Nationality:

American

Quote count:

6

Times favorited:

13

Waylon Arnold Jennings was an influential American country music singer and musician. A self-taught guitar player, he rose to prominence as a bass player for Buddy Holly following the break-up of The Crickets. He escaped death in the February 3, 1959 plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson when he gave up his seat to the latter. After a brief performing and recording career in Phoenix, Arizona he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he did not fit in with the tightly organized music industry in that city. By the 1970s, he had become associated with so-called "outlaws," an informal group of musicians who worked outside of the Nashville corporate scene. A series of duet albums with Willie Nelson in the late 1970s culminated in the 1978 crossover hit, "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys". In 1979, he recorded the theme song for the hit television show The Dukes of Hazzard, and also served as the narrator for all seven seasons of the show.